What a difference a year makes. Last year I was writing to extol the vitality of research in western American literature, noting especially the tremendous growth in the field of nearly twelve times the yearly output of studies since the WLA began; this year I find that the output has dropped off by nearly a hundred, and I am hard-pressed to determine why. The research is still interdisciplinary in nature, reflecting both breadth and depth in subjects that focus on many aspects of the West. To try to make some sense of what is happening, I decided to plug the numbers into the chart I devised last year to illustrate how interdisciplinary research in the field has become. The results, as displayed below, are interesting.

RESEARCH COMPARISON PER DISCIPLINE: 1999/2000

Discipline

M.A. 1999

M.A. 2000

Ph.D. 1999

Ph.D. 2000

American Literature

7

18

84

41

American Studies

5

8

3

Anthropology/Archaeology

3

2

Art History

3

7

2

2

Canadian History

2

2

Canadian Literature

7

1

Canadian Studies

3

Cinema

3

1

Comparative Literature

1

1

9

2

Cultural Anthropology

3

5

20

6

Dance

1

Fine Arts

1

Geography

2

1

1

Linguistics

2

3

1

1

Mass Communications

1

Modern Literature

3

2

5

Music

1

1

Rhetoric and Composition

3

1

Theater

2

1

3

U.S. History

7

16

48

15

Women’s Studies

2

1

Traditionally, the subject areas that generate the most studies about the West are American literature and U.S. history. Yet, it is these subject areas that fell off the most, about two-thirds and one-half as many, respectively.

The research generally follows the trends I have noted before: increasing emphasis in interdisciplinary studies with a heavy preponderance of Native American topics—over sixty different studies this year ranging from analyses of individual authors to issues having to do with assimilation and hybridity. Distant seconds included topics concerning wilderness, landscape and travel/nature writing, gender, “others” (Chicano/a, Asian American, mulattos). It is perhaps this emphasis on “other” that leads to an examination of identity in so many forms: performance and identity, theatricality and identity, food and identity, dance and identity, yielding such interesting titles as “Tucson Eat Yourself: Food, Ethnicity, and the Substantiation of Identity”; “Dancing Identity: Gwich’in Indigenous Dance as Articulation of Identity”; or “Mutton in the Melting Pot: Food as Symbols of Communication Reflecting, Transmitting, and Creating Cultural Identity among Urban Navajos.” Closely related are studies redefining frontiers or borders such as “Life on the Border: Cyberspace and the Frontier in Historical Perspective.” New this year are themes of domesticity or family, enough of them to rate noting their existence, many focused on mother-daughter or father-son relationships in works by individual authors, as in “Matrilineaology: Mother-Daughter Relationships in Contemporary Fiction,” which examines such relationships in Louise Erdrich’s Beet Queenand Amy Tan’s Joy Luck Club.One other new item deserves a footnote, though there is not yet enough information to determine what direction it is going: an interest in narrative structure—the use of silences or narrative versus fiction.

This year, the only individual author to stand out significantly was Willa Cather, with fourteen studies examining various aspects of her works. The next closest was Louise Erdrich, who generated six studies. More significant were the sheer numbers and varieties of individual authors mentioned, many, like Edna Ferber or Mary Crow Dog, rarely ever studied. Of these studies concerning individual authors, most explore contemporary authors and many examine topics that have come to dominate western American literature, notably issues pertaining to ethnicity and identity or nature and the environment. Also notable was the number of studies concerning authors found on bestseller lists around the country: Tony Hillerman, Tom Robbins, Cormac McCarthy, and Larry McMurtry, to name a few.

In summary, then, this year’s research reveals that, though the numbers of studies may have dropped off somewhat, the vitality of the field is still quite apparent and will keep researchers scrambling to keep up for yet another year.

[Abbreviations used: AU=author, TI=title, IN=institution]

Masters Abstracts International

American Literature (17)

AU: Dwyer, Margaret.
TI: Hunting for an American Indian Environmental Ethic.
IN: M.A., University of Texas at Arlington, 1999.

AU: Egbert, Elaine.
TI: The American Journal of Science and Early Nineteenth-Century American Nature Writing.
IN: M.A., University of Nevada, Reno, 1999.

AU: Long, Douglas Kevin.
TI: The Immigration Debate in the Southwest: An Examination and Analysis of Arguments.
IN: M.A., University of Texas at Arlington, 1998.

AU: Sánchez, Juan Antonio.
TI: The Portrayal of the Chicano Experience in the Novels of Alejandro Morales.
IN: M.A., Michigan State University, 1999.

Art History (7)

AU: DeLoach, Dana Engstrom.
TI: Image and Identity at El Santuario de Chimayo in Chimayo, New Mexico.
IN: M.A., University of North Texas, 1999.

AU: Fry, Aaron.
TI: The Northern Traditional Powwow Clothing Style and the United States Postal Service: A Study in Conflicted Meanings.
IN: M.A., University of New Mexico, 1999.

AU: Leece, Robert Douglas.
TI: Coast Salish Mountain Goat Horn Bracelets: Evidence of Change and Continuity in Coast Salish Art Production and Use during the Early Contact Period on the Northwest Coast of America.
IN: M.A., University of Victoria (Canada), 1999.

AU: Wilson, Lara Jane.
TI: Public/Private Construction: The Photographic Album of Nellie L. McClung. [This study examines how the Nellie McClung album provides insight into gender and class constructions in western Canada of the early twentieth century.]
IN: M.A., University of Victoria (Canada), 1999.

AU: Krasowski, Sheldon K.
TI: A Numiany (The Prayer People) and the Pagans of Walpole Island First Nation: Resistance to the Anglican Church, 1845-1885.
IN: M.A., Trent University (Canada), 1999.

Canadian Literature (1)

AU: Vincent, Douglas George Arnold.
TI: Playing with Cultures: The Role of Coyote in Sheila Watson’s The Double Hook and Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water.
IN: M.A., Queen’s University of Kingston (Canada), 1999.

Comparative Literature (1)

AU: Basile, Paola.
TI: Lahontan et l’Évolution Moderne du Mythe du “Bon Savage.” [The thesis examines the impact of the Dialogues of Lahontan (1702-1703) on the development of the concept of the Noble Savage.]
IN: M.A., McGill University (Canada), 1997.

AU: Cornia, Reed W.
TI: Land Conflict in the Uintah Basin: The Anglo and Native American Struggle for Control of the Uintah-Ouray Reservation’s Natural Resources.
IN: M.S., Utah State University, 1999.

AU: Edwards, Leigh Holladay.
TI: Blood Relations: The Cultural Work of Miscegenation in Nineteenth-Century American Literature. [Examines works by Hawthorne, Melville, Chopin, Twain, and Helen Hunt Jackson as well as popular Pocahontas narratives and the 1863 miscegenation pamphlet in which the term was coined.]
IN: Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, 1999.

AU: Geis, Edward Warren.
TI: Beyond the Great Divide: American Fiction and Ecology in the Conservation Age. [The study focuses on three works of fiction as case studies: Sarah Orne Jewett’s The Country of the Pointed Firs,Willa Cather’s O Pioneers!, and Jack London’s The Valley of the Moon.]
IN: Ph.D., University of Utah, 1999.

AU: Gianferrari, Maria Christina.
TI: Hybrid Voices/Hybrid Texts: A Study of Syncretism in the Works of Samson Occom, Handsome Lake, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Louise Erdrich.
IN: Ph.D., State University of New York at Stony Brook, 1999.

AU: Kalter, Susan Mary.
TI: Keeping These Words until the Stones Melt: Language, Ecology, War, and the Written Land in Nineteenth Century U.S.-Indian Relations.
IN: Ph.D., University of California, San Diego, 1999.

AU: Kvidera, Peter James.
TI: Narrating Americanization: Space and Form in U.S. Immigrant Writing, 1890-1927. [Includes, among others, examinations of works by Willa Cather and O.E. Rölvaag.]
IN: Ph.D., University of Washington, 1999.

AU: MacNeil, Denise Mary.
TI: Roots of the American Frontier Hero in the Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson.
IN: Ph.D., Claremont Graduate University, 2000.

AU: McMahon, Marybeth.
TI: Landscapes of Consciousness: A Study of Modern Techniques in Willa Cather’s A Lost Lady, TheProfessor’s House,and Death Comes for the Archbishop.
IN: Ph.D., City University of New York, 1999.

AU: Mulrooney, Frank P.
TI: The Sunbonnet and the Sombrero: Pioneer Feminism and Feminist Pioneers in the Early Novels of Edna Ferber.
IN: Ph.D., University of South Florida, 2000.

AU: Preston, Nathaniel Hope.
TI: “Oh, Flower of Eastern Silence”: The Influence of Indian Religion on American Fiction, 1882-1933. [The study includes a discussion of Mark Twain’s The Mysterious Stranger,among others.]
IN: Ph.D., University of Tennessee, 1999.

AU: Thompson, Stephanie Lewis.
TI: Gentlemen Prefer Modernism: “Middlebrow” Culture and the Transmutation of Realism in the Works of Louisa May Alcott, Edith Wharton, Willa Cather, and Fannie Hurst.
IN: Ph.D., University of Tennessee, 1999.

AU: Utschig, Andrew Steven.
TI: Rethinking Apathy: Political Apathy from Kerouac to Coupland.
IN: Ph.D., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2000.

AU: Wasley, Patrick David.
TI: Invitations to an Icy Land: Textual Constructions for Nature Tourism in John Burroughs’ and John Muir’s Narratives of Alaska and the Far North.
IN: Ph.D., Indiana University of Pennsylvania, 1999.

AU: Kaliss, Anthony Morris.
TI: Europeans and Native Peoples: A Comparison of the Policies of the United States and Soviet/Russian Governments towards the Native Peoples on Both Sides of the Bering Strait.
IN: Ph.D., University of Hawai’i, 1999.

AU: Carollo, Kevin Anthony.
TI: Frontier Legacies: The Search for Home in the Twentieth Century. [The study includes Louise Erdrich as one of four authors examined.]
IN: Ph.D., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1999.

AU: Crystall, Elyse Terry.
TI: Refracted Histories: Gender and the Politics of Perspective in Three “Border” Narratives. [Works addressed include Luis Valdez’s film Zoot Suit,Sandra Cisneros’s short story “Eyes of Zapata,” and Elena Poniatowska’s novel Tinísima.]
IN: Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1999.

AU: Kingston, Deanna Marie.
TI: Returning: Twentieth Century Performance of the King Island Wolf Dance. [The study focuses on the revival of the King Island (Alaska) Native Community’s wolf dance to determine why the community felt it was necessary to do so in light of 20th-century values.]
IN: Ph.D., University of Alaska Fairbanks, 1999.

AU: Payne, Sarah.
TI: Literary Tourism: An Examination of Tourists’ Anticipation of and Encounter with the Literary Shrines of Willa Cather and Margaret Laurence.
IN: Ph.D., York University (Canada), 1999.

Language and Linguistics (1)

AU: De Fina, Anna.
TI: Immigrant Identities: A Discourse Analysis of Narratives Told by Mexicans in the U.S.
IN: Ph.D., Georgetown University, 1999.

AU: Cochran, Stuart.
TI: Styles of the Wild. [Includes discussions of American nature writing from Bertram and Thoreau to contemporary writers Gary Snyder, Barry Lopez, and Terry Tempest Williams.]
IN: Ph.D., City University of New York, 2000.

Theater (3)

AU: Appleford, Robert.
TI: The Indian “Act”: Postmodern Perspectives on Native Canadian Theatre.
IN: Ph.D., University of Toronto (Canada), 1999.

AU: Freeland, Thomas Antony.
TI: The National Entertainment: Buffalo Bill’s Wild West and the Pageant of American Empire.
IN: Ph.D., Stanford University, 1999.

AU: Lester, Carole Nancy.
TI: Tinstar and Redcoat: A Comparative Study of History, Literature, and Motion Pictures through the Dramatization of Violence in the Settlement of the Western Frontier Regions of the United States and Canada.
IN: Ph.D., University of North Texas, 1998.

AU: Lopez, Ronald William, II.
TI: The Battle for Chavez Ravine: Public Policy and Chicano Community Resistance in Post War Los Angeles, 1945-1962.
IN: Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley, 1999.

AU: Lucas, Joseph S.
TI: Conquering the Passions: Indians, Europeans, and the Idea of Cultural Change in Early American Social Thought, 1580-1830.
IN: Ph.D., Pennsylvania State University, 1999.